


From Adam’s Rib

by goldheartedsky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes is actually dead, But also, But with a happy ending, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Existentialism, Gay Steve Rogers, Golem!Bucky, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mentions of the Holocaust, Mutual Pining, Nazi hunting, On the Run, Steve is still Captain America, Strangers to Lovers, Supernatural Elements, Tender and Tragic, Unrequited Love, mild religious themes, off-screen violence, what does it mean to be human?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23290582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheartedsky/pseuds/goldheartedsky
Summary: This is how the story goes.A man made of clay sent to protect his people.A man made by science sent to protect the world.What is your humanity worth when you have to earn every scrap of it?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	From Adam’s Rib

**Author's Note:**

> So in this story, the Golem is very similar to the golems in The Magicians, if you have seen the show at all. It is very realistic and has real hair, so it looks basically like a carbon copy of Bucky. Do with that what you will.

* * *

_Poland, 1946_

“Do you think this is necessary, Aaron?” the woman said in Yiddish as his fingers carved through the clay. It clung to his nails, his palms, the air, it seemed. Aaron ignored her and kept working. “Aaron, _please_ ,” she continued. “Hitler is dead. The Nazis are gone; they are—”

“They are _not_ ,” he bit back sharply. He looked up at the woman, her face barely recognizable in the darkness underground. Candlelight cut sharp creases across her skin. “They are not and you are foolish to think so. Our people are _gone_ , Renia. I am making sure that we are safe.” Aaron’s hands smoothed over the body on the table in front of him, over fingers and arms and eyes. “There will always be men like Hitler,” he said quietly, picking up his tools again. “This will keep us safe as it did centuries before.”

There was no rabbi left to say the blessings, so Aaron said what he knew, recited what he could. But still, the body laid lifeless and silent. “This was supposed to work, Aaron,” Reina whispered as he repeated the prayers. He ignored her and began chanting again. This _had_ to work. This was the last chance they had to stay safe.

He covered the clay face with his hands and looked up at Reina. “Light two more candles. Put them above his head.” The flames glowed over the soft, pale features of the man on the table and Aaron began to speak the Hebrew again. The candles flickered and, with a sudden rush of cold air to the bunker, went out. In the darkness, all Aaron can hear is Reina’s shaking breath.

A low rumbling began to build and the clay started to tremble under his fingers. Aaron pulled back his hands as the woman across from him struck a match, cutting the humming blackness.

He watched in frightened awe as the clay body began to rise—its carved hands pushing up against the table until it sat upright. From across the room, Reina let out a short gasp. “It worked. Aaron, it _worked_.”

Clay eyelids blinked open and behind was a soft grey-blue like the sky after a storm. It slowly reached up and touched the carved letters in his forehead. Its mouth cracked open and a hollow, rattling voice fell out. “I am awake.”

Aaron reached out and touched the hollow of the man’s throat. “Welcome, Golem. We have been waiting for you.”

~~~

Steve dreamed of falling more often than not. He dreamed of rumbling trains and fingers slipping through his and ice. He dreamed of soft pink lips against his and mouths twisted into screams he can’t forget. He dreamed of waking and falling and waking and forced living. But as he fell from the Helicarrier into the Potomac, he dreamt of nothing.

Just a single thought as he slipped into unconsciousness and into the water.

_Is this what Bucky felt?_

When he woke, he woke to darkness. The metal bed creaked as he shifted, struggling to sit up. He dug his hand into his abdomen and hissed. The warehouse was dark and empty and smelled of damp blood and mildew. Steve was stripped from the waist up, the bullet holes patched carefully. But the blood hadn’t been scrubbed clean; it stained his chest and stomach and arms and his tactical pants.

His head fell back onto the stained mattress. The windows spun.

“You are safe now, Captain Rogers,” a voice said from the darkness, gentle and hollow. Steve’s head swung around as he tried to see where it came from. A large, looming figure appeared from the shadows like a ghost, hands carefully opened at his sides.

He couldn’t make a face out and Steve struggled to find his voice. “Who—Who are you? Where am I?”

“You are safe. You are with a friend.” The voice belonged to a a man and it sounded familiar—like some far distant memory he’d forgotten in the ice. A left behind dream, maybe.

“Natasha, Sam, where are—”

“They are safe as well. They were not harmed in the removal.”

Steve’s blood ran cold. “What removal? What are you talking about? Who are you?!” he demanded, pushing himself up again. The dust in the warehouse floated through the small sliver of moonlight that sliced through a broken window and the figure stepped out of the darkness and into the pale silver glow. Steve’s mouth fell open in a broken sob.

 _Bucky_.

But it wasn’t Bucky, not from what Steve could see. This thing, whatever it was, had Bucky’s face, his eyes, his skin, his hair. It was Bucky but it wasn’t; it was a mask with the face of the man he loved plastered over some dead thing. Every cell of his body was screaming for Steve to run, but he couldn’t move an inch. His voice shook as he stood on unsteady legs. He looked at the thing in front of him and choked, “What are you?”

It took a step closer and Steve realized it had yet to blink. “We need to talk.”

They sat across from one another, a small lantern between them. It reminded Steve so much of those days during the war that he had to stop and take a moment to breathe. This wasn’t Bucky. It couldn’t be.

“What are you?” he asked again, voice barely above a whisper. “Why do you look like Bucky?”

The man nodded and rest his hands on his knees. “I know you have many questions, Captain Rogers,” he said. “I may not be able to answer them all but I will try.” Steve could hear his own shaking breath but could not hear the other being’s. Its chest did not rise and it made Steve’s skin crawl. It seemed to sense it and mirrored those basic human acts. “To explain, I must start at the beginning. Life as you know it, was begun with clay. Adam was formed from the earth and life was breathed into him.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh. “When you said the beginning, you really meant it, didn’t you?”

It did not smile or give him a sense of satisfaction—only nodded. “Adam was the first Golem. He became human and every generation came after him. But Golems continued to be formed by those close to divinity in the most desperate of times,” it said. “During Creation. After destruction. That is why I was made.”

“So you’re a Golem.” The creature nodded and Steve’s stomach dropped. “But why do you look like my friend? He’s been dead for almost seventy years.”

“I was created in 1946 by a man named Aaron Edelman. He was one of the few survivors of the Warsaw Ghettos. He hid underground after the Ghetto fell, fighting with the People’s Guard until the war was through. He saw the fall of Hitler and knew that it would only be a matter of time before someone else would rise to power—that fascism would never truly die out with the Nazis,” the Golem said quietly, staring into the lantern with wide, unblinking eyes. “He made me to keep the Jews that had survived the Shoah safe from further harm.”

“Of all the people you could have looked like, why did it have to be Bucky?” Steve whispered as he pulled his knees to his chest. “Why did you have to look like _him_?”

The Golem tilted his head up and met his gaze. There was a reverent smile on his face and he let out a soft sigh. “Because James Barnes was the Jew that stood up and fought. Because he fell. Because he did not finish the work he set out to do with you. That is why my creator chose him.”

Steve’s eyes burned with tears as he scrubbed bloodstained hands over his face. “You didn’t even know him. Nobody knew him like I did,” he choked. His throat felt tight and his shoulders shook. “You might look like him, talk like him, but you’ll never be the man he was.”

The Golem tilted his head, as if in agreement. “Perhaps not. He was a good man and if there is any of him in me that can be found, it will be enough. But I am sorry I cannot be James Barnes the way you wish me to be.” There was a hint of sadness in its voice that Steve couldn’t quite place.

“None of that explains how you found me—why you’re here” The Golem gave him a quizzical look. “You talked about ‘the removal,’” Steve elaborated. “Removal of what?”

“Hydra’s infestation of S.H.I.E.L.D. is only the beginning,” it said. “The infection run deep. Many have escaped the consequences for what they’ve done. These still-living roots need to be burned. James Barnes is no longer alive to see you through this. That is why I am here.” The Golem reached out and pinched the burning flame of the lantern between two solid fingers. Under the smoke, Steve could smell the deep scent of ashes against earth. No tender scorched flesh or blood.

Moonlight cut across them both and Steve held his stomach as he rose. “Where do we begin?”

~~~

Death was the easiest part of life.

It usually came suddenly and without fanfare. Blood poured like water over trenches and battlefields. Steve had become familiar with death before he was old enough to recognize its tender, sharp claws. Death came when he was three and sat by his bedside, sand sifting quickly through an hourglass as the Spanish Flu ravaged his tiny body. It became an old friend throughout every childhood illness, every close call. There were times when Death became impatient—wrapping thick tendrils around his throat as he struggled through another asthma attack.

Steve knew Death would come for him eventually, but now—as he made his way through time unscathed—Steve began to wonder if he had traded everyone else’s lives for his own.

Death was the easy part—killing was harder.

“When will I be able to contact my friends?” he asked as they made their way through the underbrush. His clothes were stained and Steve wasn’t exactly sure where they were. Somewhere in Europe. They had spent a week in the belly of an cargo ship in a bulkhead so small that he could barely move. Steve had spent most of the time sleeping on and off, but the Golem just sat there, staring at the wall for days on end.

Unblinking and unsleeping.

“In time. It is not safe for you to reach out to them, not yet,” the Golem said, his eyes dark as he ducked under the low hanging branches. It had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other; moved as swiftly and silently as a shadow. Steve could barely keep up.

Steve stuck his foot out to slow his slide as they went down the bank of a small ravine. A branch snapped under him and the Golem grabbed his shoulder to keep him from falling. “Thanks,” he muttered. “So what’s the plan when we get inside?” The bunker rose up in a nearby clearing, light spilling out beneath the single door.

“They have shown my people no mercy,” the Golem said, bracing himself for a fight that they both knew was coming. “I will show them no mercy either. I suggest you do the same.”

“How long is it going to take?”

Its eyes flashed silver in the pale sliver of moonlight. “You have ten minutes. After that, I am going to burn this wretched place to the ground.”

~~~

A hundred and sixteen men.

Steve counted a hundred and sixteen men. That was how many snapped necks and bullet holes in bodies Steve could bear to make out. It happened so quickly, so efficiently that Steve barely had time to breathe, to think.

He didn’t even realize he’d been hit until they stood outside, watching the bunker be consumed by flames.

“We need to go, Captain. Someone will see the fire soon. They will come for us,” the Golem said, his voice crackling over the burning wood. The metal beams fell as ash and sparks rose into the dark night sky. Steve watched the world spin and stumbled back, catching himself against a tree. The Golem turned quickly, asking, “Captain, are you alright?”

His legs buckled and he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. The pain burned sharp and bright through his stomach and up into his chest as Steve stripped out of his jacket.

“You are injured,” the Golem whispered, kneeling in front of him and touching Steve’s stomach. Blood trickled in a slow, ruby river. He felt his heartbeat pound in his abdomen, so close to where the clay hand was touching him. Steve nodded, blinking slowly as he rucked the bottom of his shirt up over his chest. There were two bullet holes, one just above his hip and the other an inch in from his side. No damage that the serum wouldn’t fix. “Captain,” the Golem said again, softer this time. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s fine,” Steve muttered and wiped the blood and mud from his face. “I’ve been—I’ve been hurt worse than this.”

The Golem knew about the train but didn’t know about Bucky’s screams. It could know the history the books held but never what really happened. Nobody knew that but Steve. When he was gone, it all would go with him. Bucky would be lost to the past.

“Lay back. You need medical attention.” An earthen hand covered his own and Steve’s head spun. He had been so good at blocking out the pain, blocking out what ailed him, blocking out everything. Now it had all begun to catch up to him. The Golem’s fingers worked quickly as it unraveled a single thread from its loose shirt and produced a needle from the seam of his pack. “I cannot promise you this will not hurt, but I will be as gentle as I can,” the Golem said.

His throat burned and Steve felt the tears prick at his eyes. He let out a short, pained laugh. “You’re really starting to sound like him, you know,” he said, the words coming out halfway to a sob. “You sound just fucking like him—telling me you’ll be gentle.”

The Golem paused. He ducked his head and tied a small knot at the end of the thread. “I am sorry… He meant much to you.”

“He meant the world.” He winced as the needle pierced his skin. “He meant everything and I never even told him.” A sob bubbled up his throat and Steve covered his face with both hands. “Why d-didn’t I t-tell him?”

“If this is any consolation,” the Golem said gently, tying quick stitches with terrifying accuracy, “I think James Barnes knew. You do not so lightly seek death for mere honor or duty. You find that bravery only through love.” It refused to meet Steve’s eyes but there was a tenderness in its voice that made Steve’s stomach ache and not just from the bullet holes. “You loved him and he loved you.”

Steve’s breath hitched and he shook his head, the sorrow laying waste to bright, hot anger. “You didn’t know him,” he snapped, muffled against his hands. But the Golem heard him and pulled his hands away again, one of the holes mended. “You didn’t _know_ him!” Steve shouted, the rush of furious tears coming hard and heavy. “You might look like him, but don’t you ever fucking talk about Bucky like you knew him!”

His chest heaved and Steve watched the Golem silently tilt its gaze to meet his fire. God, it looked so much like Bucky that it made Steve sick, but the carved letters in its forehead couldn’t be ignored. The Golem studied him before it blinked once, lash-less lids hiding its grey-blue eyes. “I am sorry,” it murmured. “I am sorry that he is gone and you have been lonely for so long.”

“I’m not—”

His voice cut off in a choked failure. He _was_. He was so goddamn lonely that Steve often wondered what the point was to any of this. He clung to his shield like a lifeline—his only saving grace for a lifetime of failure. He hid behind the mask to keep everyone from seeing the real Steve Rogers.

They stared at each other for a moment before Steve’s fist finally unclenched. He leaned back against the tree and the Golem silently nodded, picking up the needle again. The second wound was sewn quickly, the stream of blood trickling to a close. Blood stained the Golem’s hands and Steve wondered if the crimson could even be washed clean from the clay. “Turn around,” it said and offered him a hand.

The bark of the tree chipped under his fingers as he knelt in front of it, his back to the Golem. Steve felt the throbbing of his wounds more sharply now and could pinpoint every prick of the needle. He leant his sweaty head against the oak and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for yelling at you like that.”

A cool hand smoothed over his spine but the Golem did not say anything. Goosebumps spread across his arms and neck and Steve shuddered. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think about anything but gentle weight of clay on his back. Finally, the Golem spoke. “You have nothing to apologize for, Steve. You were hurt.”

They did not speak again after that.

~~~

Steve awoke in some small, dingy hotel room in France with sunlight beginning to stream through the cracked window. A siren wailed by from below. He shifted to his right side and there was no pain from the bullet wounds anymore. He ran his fingers over his abdomen—no holes, only healed skin and buried thread.

Sitting up silently in bed, Steve looked around the room and caught sight of the Golem. It sat on a stool by the door, a gun draped across its lap. Its eyes looked distant as it stared at the far wall, as if lost in thought. The Golem seemed to sense Steve staring and it turned to him, a small smile crossing its face. “You are awake.”

“So are you.”

“I do not sleep,” it said, rising from where it sat. “I am not as delicate as you humans; I have no need for it. The days and years have no effect on me.” The Golem moved with soundless footsteps as it crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. The frame whined under their combined weight.

Steve’s fingers spread on the grey, threadbare sheets. “Will you die? I mean, eventually.”

It shook its head and trailed careful fingers over the farthest right letter carved into its forehead. “No, not unless this _alef_ is removed,” the Golem said, its voice a low rumble from deep inside its chest. “The way that it’s written now, ‘ _emet_ ,’ spells truth. Remove the first letter and it becomes, ‘ _met_.’ Death.” Its hand fell and was mere inches from Steve’s own. An odd shadow crossed the Golem’s face. “I do not fear death,” it said, the ridges of its carved brow pulling together, “but there is part of me that worries I will be laid to rest before my work is complete. That I will have died for nothing.”

“Bucky always said that as long as one good deed leads to another, that if you don’t forget the divinity you were given, that it’ll be enough,” Steve mused, trying to ignore the way the morning sun had turned them both to gold.

The Golem laughed and a sharp wound opened in Steve’s heart as he heard the familiar sound for the first time in almost seventy years. He could feel the burning rush of emotion pour from his chest—hot and slick like fresh blood. Part of Steve wished the Golem had enough thread to quickly mend this ache like it had done with his wounds last night.

“He sounds like a smart man. A good Jew,” it said, almost fondly. “I wish I could have gotten the chance to meet him.”

“You would have liked him,” Steve muttered. “Everyone did.”

There was a tightness in the back of his throat again as he cleared it quickly. The Golem’s smile faded a little and he leaned close to Steve. “If you wish to tell me about him, I would be honored.”

Their knees brushed together and he ignored the sudden thump of his heart against the walls of his chest. “He always used to laugh so much; before.” Steve’s voice shook and his tongue felt heavy. “He would laugh and the corners of his eyes would crinkle and he would throw his head back. I remember the lines of his neck, his jaw. Bucky always smelled like lemons because his mother used them in her tea. He would cut them for her. On the weekends, his fingernails would turn yellow from the skins. Then, when he got older, he started drinking it too. He made it so sweet that he always tasted like sugar when he kissed me.”

A flood of memories came back all at once. Memories Steve hadn’t told a single soul in his entire life, not that anyone had ever asked.

“He always took care of me, even when no one else did. He was there after my Ma died, after everyone left me. He always just saw me. Never had eyes for anyone else. Loved me so much that he never wanted me to see him sad. He hid out when it happened, would sometimes be gone days on end—just holed up in the YHWA, sleeping until he wasn’t so down. I didn’t know how to help him then and sometimes I wish I could go back and treat him like I should’ve.”

“You said he laughed, though,” the Golem said, almost confused. “I thought… If he laughed so much, how could he isolate himself? Especially from someone he loved.”

Steve shook his head. “It doesn’t—humans don’t work like that. It’s not only one emotion all the time. Sometimes we’re happy, sometimes mad, and sometimes we’re sad. Sometimes the sadness was all Bucky could feel. I think he had depression but nobody understood that back then,” he explained. The Golem still had this perplexed expression on its face—trying to process what Steve was telling him. He sighed. “Emotions are the most human thing we have. We feel happy when something good happens. We grieve and mourn when we lose someone we love—sometimes for a long time. Some emotions are quick, like when you get mad about the rain, and sometimes they’re there for a long time, like when you love somebody.”

It shifted slightly as if in anticipation. “I know what love is, know the things you do for it,” it said, hesitant. “But I do not know what it feels like to be in love.”

“Do you want me to explain it to you?” Steve asked.

The Golem nodded.

The irony of explaining love to a creature with his love’s face is not lost on Steve. In a perfect world, he could reach out and touch the Golem’s face, feel warm skin and soft hair. He would be blink and it would be Bucky again. But it will never be. Bucky was dead and there was nothing Steve could do to bring him back.

A melancholic smile tugs at his lips. “It’s really easy, being in love. It just happens one day and suddenly the world is brighter—all the color becomes deeper. You meet someone and suddenly you can’t imagine your life without them,” Steve said, unable to meet the Golem’s eyes. If he did, he’d be lost in his memories forever. “It’s—it’s the best feeling in the world. You fall in love and you’re suddenly at peace.”

The Golem’s hand slid over to rest on his and Steve’s heart dropped into his stomach at the sudden, unexpected warmth of the clay. “Thank you, Steve,” it said. “I think I understand now.”

~~~

The first month goes by in a blur of bodies and blood.

He was officially listed as a missing person after two weeks, a worldwide manhunt created trying to find him. Hydra had also begun to get wind of their hunt and it became harder and harder for them to keep a low profile. They hadn’t stopped in a large city in days, slumming it in abandoned buildings and ditches. Steve knew the work they were doing was important—that the world was better off with every Hydra cell they destroyed—but sometimes he missed his old life, his friends, his home.

The second, third, and fourth months became routine. Sleep, eat, kill. Just like the war, Steve mused. But his friends were dead. Bucky was dead.

They’d stopped off the coast in Ireland; no, Wales. The coast was bitterly cold and the wind whipped his hair around his face. Steve stared out at the choppy water as the Golem washed their clothes in the tide. He was stripped down to his coat and tactical pants while the Golem crouched in the water, body completely bare.

It wasn’t that he had never seen Bucky naked before. They had swam in the Atlantic together, had bathed together as children. They had slept next to each other during the winters and when Steve was sick. But now the Golem not only had his face, but his body too. There were details that were missing: the freckles on his left hip, the birthmark on the inside of his right thigh, the scar on his lower abdomen where Bucky had his appendix taken out at fourteen.

The more Steve stared at the naked body, knee deep in the frigid surf, the less he could recall the original curve of Bucky’s ass, the way his cock hung between his thighs. Things he used to have burned into his memory, even when Steve had tried to push those intrusive thoughts from his mind.

Bucky was slipping away.

“It will take some time for the clothes to dry,” a voice said, making Steve look up. The Golem approached him, water soaking its arms as it carried the dripping laundry. Its hair fell across the Hebrew on its forehead and its eyes blended with the grey sky. “We should move inside. It will be dark soon. You look cold.”

The cottage was long since abandoned, empty except for the old 1960’s furniture and dishes. The Golem begun to hang the clothes over the chairs around the table as Steve lit a fire. The flames cast a sharp flicker over their bodies and Steve stripped his coat off, letting the heat warm his wind-bitten skin. His tactical pants were stiff as he knelt on the hearth.

“Steve, if you want your pants washed, I can take them from you,” the Golem said gently, crouching down next to him. Its face looked softer in the firelight—almost human.

He let out a trembling breath and nodded, fingers hesitating around the buttons. His heart pounded in his chest as he removed the last of his clothing. The Golem never broke his gaze, taking the last of his clothes without a word. A shadow of a smile crossed its face and Steve swallowed the lump in his throat, reaching out and brushing a curl off its forehead.

“Steve…” it whispered.

“Can I call you James?” he breathed, a rush of air flooding from his lungs. A hesitant look flashed over the Golem’s face. It made a motion to move away from him and Steve caught it around the back of the neck. They stared at each other, unblinking, unmoving, and Steve’s thumb brushed over the smooth clay below the Golem’s ear. “I think—I think Bucky would want me to,” he said slowly, his heart aching in ways he didn’t quite understand. “ _I_ want to call you James.”

The Golem trembled slightly under his touch and sucked in a short breath. “I’ve—I’ve never had a name before.”

The wind howled outside and Steve could hear the soft patter of rain begin to fall on the windowpanes. His fingers twisted in the soft curls at the base of the Golem’s skull. He doesn’t understand it, how this—how James came to be, but he’s begun to not care anymore.

James leant in just slightly and Steve finally noticed how close they were. Their bare legs and arms were twisted together, faces mere inches apart. James reached out and touched the high rise of Steve’s cheekbone. “When you spoke about what it felt like to be in love, I said I understood,” it said, eyes dark as they stayed trained on Steve’s. “I was not being truthful. I did not understand.” Its fingers brushed down over his lips. “I did not understand. Now, I think I do.”

Steve’s grip tightened and he closed the distance between his mouth and James’, the first crack of thunder echoing outside.

~~~

Steve began to lose track of how many Hydra cells they had taken down.

They left Europe and traveled through Argentina, digging up the last of the hidden SS officers from the woodworks. Every new Nazi they uncovered just sunk Steve further and further into frustration. He had woken up and was told that they had won the war. But it seemed like the war had never ended and nothing that Steve and Bucky had died for had mattered.

James tried to keep him from letting the overwhelming nihilism settle over them both as they made their way back to the States, but Steve could feel it burrowing deep in his chest.

They hadn’t talked about the kiss since it had happened almost a month and a half ago, nor had it happened again, but it was always at the back of his mind. The kiss and James telling Steve that he was falling in love.

How could he forget something like that?

The car they stole was an old beater from an impound lot in California and Steve had to crank the windows down to let in the cool March air. He could feel James’ eyes darting over to watch him as they drove up the coast. “Are you okay?” James asked, one of his hands on the wheel. Steve nodded and scrubbed his palms over his legs. “Are you sure?”

“How long is it a drive to Oregon?”

“Eleven hours,” he said before he turned back to the road. The road rumbled under them, cutting the silence, until James turned his free hand over, outstretching his palm to Steve. Something deep in Steve’s chest unknotted as he let out a soft sigh and took the golem’s hand.

He was still half lost in his thoughts when they stopped at a diner in Fresno.

He ordered food for himself at the counter while James sat in a corner booth, tucked away from everyone else. Steve watched the golem’s eyes scan around the diner before they stopped on a group of men sitting three booths down. James’ eyes narrowed and he stared them down calmly but with a terrifying focus. The men did not notice him, only continued their loud laughing.

When Steve returned with two hamburgers and a basket of fries, James did not look at him. “James, you’re gonna get us noticed if you don’t stop.”

“Their tattoos,” he said, lips barely moving. There was a fire in his grey eyes that Steve could see more clearly now that he was sitting in front of him. “‘ _Blut und Ehre_.’ It means ‘Blood and Honor.’ One of them has it on his arms. Another has a swastika on his neck.” James’ fists clenched where they lay on the table. “They’re Nazis, Steve.”

He shifted in the bench, turning just enough to get a good look at the group. They were shuffling around, beginning to rise to exit the diner. But the tattoos were visible even from where they sat and Steve knew the dilemma on their hands. “They’re civilians, not Hydra. Assholes, yeah, but they’re still—”

James’ rage suddenly turned on him. “They’re _still_ Nazis,” he hissed, teeth bared in panicked confusion. His eyebrows twisted and there was a flash of betrayal in his eyes. “They’re no different than the men who tortured and killed millions of my people. They would do so again if they are allowed,” he said and Steve’s stomach turned at how anxious James had started to sound. “I cannot sit by and leave them be.”

“You told me that we were bringing down Hydra,” Steve whispered as he grabbed at the golem’s wrist. “You never said anything about civilians. That’s not what I’m here to do.”

A dark shadow fell across James’ face. He pulled his hand back from Steve’s and rose halfway from his seat, spitting, “Then your work is no longer mine.”

The door of the diner jingled as the group of men left, James slipping out behind them.

~~~

The door of the hotel did not open until nearly three in the morning.

Steve looked up at James as the golem shut the door silently. He could smell the blood even from where he sat on the edge of the bed. The sticky, coppery scent wafted through the room and made him nauseous. James froze when he saw Steve sitting there. “You shouldn’t have waited for me,” he said darkly as he begun to strip out of his clothes. “You could have gone home.”

“What did you do to those men?”

The golem stiffly pulled his t-shirt off, the soaked fabric sticking to his body. Steve could see the blood that clung to the softly carved lines of James’ abdomen, chest, and arms, even in the barely-there light of the single lamp. The golem crouched, eyes trained on him like a predatory animal, and said, “Those men will never hurt anyone ever again.”

“You don’t even know if they had done anything before!” Steve shouted as he rose quickly to his feet. “They _weren’t Hydra_.”

“I was not going to sit and wait for them to hurt people.” James’ voice was low, like a rumble of stones on a far off hillside. His grey eyes had turned nearly black in the shadows of the doorway. “Civilians or not, they were Nazis. How many of the men that the Commandos killed were ‘just following orders’?” he asked, stalking toward Steve with soundless steps.

Steve suddenly felt trapped, backed up against the bed. “We were at war. But now? I never would have done what you just did. And neither would Bucky.”

“I am _not_ James Barnes!” The words rattled the hotel room the moment the golem shouted them, making Steve fall back to sit on the bed again. James loomed over him like a shade, every ounce of his divine presence overwhelming the room. Darkness fell and Steve could not breathe. “I may have his face and you may have given me his name, but I am _never_ going to _be_ him!” James growled, the air around his skin humming with electricity. His fists clenched and Steve swore he saw sparks. He took a step back and shook his head, heartbreak eating through the betrayal on his face. “I am sorry, Steve, but I am _not_ a replacement for what you lost.”

Steve hung his head and shuddered through a hiccuping sob. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, gripping his knees with both hands. “I know you’re not Bucky. I don’t—I don’t want you to be. I’m sorry.”

If the golem did not believe him, he said nothing. Only stepped back—deflated. The humming fury seemed to dissipate as James’ fists unclenched. He held his palm to his stomach and said, “I need to wash.”

Curling a hand around his wrist, Steve stopped him with a quiet, “Wait…” James’ hand fell and revealed a deep stab wound in his side, hidden by blood and the gathering darkness. The cut did not bleed and all Steve could see was the blackness of clay inside. “You’re hurt,” he said, staring up at James. “They hurt you.”

“You know I cannot be injured like you can,” the golem said, almost avoiding his eyes. “I do not bleed.”

“But does it hurt?”

James clenched his jaw and his eyes fluttered shut as he nodded stiffly. His teeth were clenched as he hissed, “I have never—it has never hurt before. I do not understand why it hurts now.”

The water echoed in the sink, the sound bouncing off the tiled bathroom, and ran warm over Steve’s hands. He watched in the mirror as James slipped out of his pants and underwear, the dried blood crusting his soft clay skin. Steve knelt on the cold floor, the washcloth in his hand, and looked up at James. “Is this okay?” The other man nodded, one hand braced on the counter.

The rivers ran red down James’ legs as Steve washed him carefully. His hand held the golem’s legs steady and his thumb brushed across the baby-fine hairs on the inside of his thigh. Steve had never noticed them before and he wondered if they had even been there before tonight. He thought back and couldn’t remember. They had to have been there; there’s no way.

Unless.

“Do you…” James’ eyes were trained on the hand clenched around the counter rim as he trailed off in thought. “Do you think that God has started to abandon me? That whatever divinity I was given is fading?” His stomach clenched underneath Steve’s hand, shying his wound away from the cloth. “I can feel myself changing and, for the first time since I was created, I feel only terror.”

Steve smoothed his hand over the clean skin, ghosting his fingers over the warm cut in the other man’s side. “I don’t think God is abandoning you,” he said reassuringly. “I think God might be granting you more divinity than you had before. I think you might be becoming human, whatever that means.”

James threaded his fingers through Steve’s hair and a soft noise caught in the back of his throat. “If…” His grip tightened, as if he was afraid to let Steve go. “If I am, it’s because of you.”

His knees shook as he rose to his feet and dropped the washcloth to the tiles on the floor. Steve’s hands gripped either side of James’ face and he pulled the golem into a headed kiss. The world spun around their central point and nothing else mattered anymore. “I think I can fix this, fix you,” he breathed into James’ mouth, his fingers coming down to cover the stab wound in his abdomen. “But just keep kissing me…”

It took all his strength to smooth the clay out, his muscles screaming at him as he holds tight to the golem. James gripped the edge of the counter and a broken gasp died in the back of his throat. “S-Steve,” he whimpered, his voice sharp with pain. “Please— _Ahh_ —Please, just—”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Steve reassured. It was a part of being human—the pain in living, he wanted to say. But how could he explain that ache to someone who has never felt it before? The need, the want, the hunger, the burn. Everything that came along with humanity, the good, the bad, and the ugly, was now within the golem’s reach. James just had to take it.

The wound closed and James fell against Steve in a shaking, trembling heap. Sweat pooled at the curve of Steve’s lower back and he combed a hand through the golem’s dark hair. He tilted James’ head up and kissed him, soft and chaste and so tender that the empty spaces in Steve’s chest began to fill again. Time slowed to a sticky sweet crawl as they clung to each other, unable and unwilling to let go.

“You need to rest,” he hummed against James’ lips. “If you are changing, you need to rest.”

For the first time since the golem had appeared in Steve’s life, there was no dispute. James went willingly, settling down onto the mattress without a single argument. His palm turned toward the heavens as he silently begged for Steve to sink his body in the sheets beside him.

It had stopped being uncomfortable, being naked in front of James. And it was even less so, crawling between his legs, letting his still-sweaty skin come down to rest on the warm clay. Steve didn’t kiss him this time. He simply drew James’ body against his, the golem’s face tucked in the crook of his neck. The room was so quiet that the only sound was Steve’s steady breathing.

James’ hair tangled through his fingers and something deep in Steve’s chest began to bloom. “When all this is over,” he said, more to himself than James, “I want you to come back with me. Come back and just stay.”

The golem’s hand curled around his hip and Steve felt James’ chest begin to rise and fall slowly. “I do not think such a life is possible for me,” a small voice whispered, hollow and numb. “I was created to keep my people safe. If I fall in love with you, my place in the world is uncertain.” Steve blinked back tears as his grip on James tightened. “This does not mean I do not want you,” the other man reassured.

“I know,” Steve mumbled, fumbling for the light. Darkness consumed them and his heart felt heavy with pitch. “I’ll still be here if you change your mind.”

~~~

He didn’t question James’ motives after that night.

Steve would wait in the car while the golem raided through a dozen hate groups on their way back across the country, hands on the steering wheel while threat after threat was snuffed out. He would think back to the grief he felt after Bucky fell, the burning rage he felt when the man he loved shook with nightmares after Azzano, and suddenly he understood James’ unyielding resolve. Steve would’ve done anything to take down Hydra if it had meant keeping Bucky, just one man, safe; James was responsible for over fourteen million people.

The closer they got to Washington, DC, the more nervous he became. Steve knew it was only a matter of time before S.H.I.E.L.D. and the rest of the Avengers got word that he was stateside again. They would come looking for him, sooner or later.

“It’s time, James,” he said as they waited at a bus station in West Virginia. They were both wearing sunglasses and hats pulled low over their faces. But nothing could mask James’ soft, pink lips as they quirk in confusion. “I have to contact my friends. I have to go see what’s left of S.H.I.E.L.D.. It’s the only way you’ll be safe to continue doing what you’re doing.”

James’ hand brushed over Steve’s lower back, careful fingers up under his t-shirt. “If you think you need to do so, then I trust you,” he said, making sure to keep his voice low.

It was a fifteen hour ride to Washington and Steve spent the entire ride tucked against James’ side, their fingers intertwined. He watched the world go by through cracked lids and relaxed against the warmth of the man in the seat next to him.

“Now if Fury’s intel is correct,” he said as they walked across the street toward the new S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, “Coulson has taken over as Director. He and I have worked together in the past so it shouldn’t be too hard to get in there when he hears it’s me.”

James scanned the street, constantly on guard, and tried to return Steve’s smile. “And if that doesn’t work?”

“Then we’re stuck finding a quick exit.”

He took his hat and sunglasses off as they went through the exit and immediately remembered what it was like being in the spotlight again. Steve had grown accustomed to the quiet life, where it was just him and James in single beds and quiet hotel rooms. To a life where he wasn’t Captain America and all he was responsible for doing was the next right thing, regardless of banners or sigils.

Back to when he was just Steve Rogers.

“C-Captain Rogers,” the woman behind the front desk stammered as he approached. “What—what are you doing here?”

“I need to speak to Coulson,” he said as he watched James wander around the rotunda out of the corner of his eye. The golem’s body language was stiff—shoulders tense as he walked over to the memorial wall. James looked constantly on guard, his eyes darting around the room as if Hydra is going to come back out of the woodwork again. Steve turned back to the stunned woman at the front desk and raised an eyebrow. “Coulson? May I see him, please?”

She gulped and darted off, touching the comm in her ear and mumbling in a frantic whisper, “Steve Rogers is in the building, please get Director Coulson; Level Blue.”

Almost every agent in the room turned on a dime and stared as he slipped over to James’ side. The dark-haired man stared at the wall of names in a numb haze. His lips pressed into a thin line as he reached out and touched a single name on the black marble.

_Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes_

“James Barnes was not S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he murmured, tracing the J with his thumb. “But they still put his name with those that fell in the line of duty.” His voice was soft, reverent even. James’ brows twisted together and Steve heard his breath hitch. “He meant so much to so many people. The world will always remember him, what he did.” The golem turned to meet Steve’s eyes and he could not hide the sadness that seemed to be carved deep into the clay. “History will never remember me,” he whispered.

“But I _will_.”

James’ hand fell from the memorial.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen after I go in there and talk to Coulson, but I know that things might change between us,” Steve said, stepping close to James. The golem’s eyes tipped down and his hands curled into fists at his sides. “I meant what I said that night in Fresno. I want you to stay,” he said and reached out to cup the back of James’ neck with one hand. “I want you to stay, James, because... I love you.”

It felt like a weight was lifted from Steve’s chest. The words lingered, hot and heavy between them. But then, James took a deep, satiated breath and drank it in like it was the only thing that could keep him standing. Their foreheads touched together gently. “I want you,” James whispered. “I want _this_ , but I have work to do. Work that cannot be ignored.”

“Then we’ll do it together, like Bucky and I did before,” he reassure the other man. “There is more to being human than a life of work. You’re allowed to be loved, James. You’re allowed to be _wanted_ , not just needed.”

James’ bottom lip quivered and he nodded silently, struggling to hold back the grief and indecision that was bubbling up inside of him. “Captain Rogers!” a voice called and they both turned. Steve’s stomach dropped when he saw Coulson and a group of agents heading toward them. James’ fingers caught the fabric of his shirt, holding him back from the hoard.

“Wait,” he whispered and cupped Steve’s face with both of his hands. The golem kissed him hard on the lips and Steve’s eyes fluttered shut, feeling James’ steady pulse against his mouth. If this is how humanity was first granted, then he can’t imagine anyone more worthy of that grace. James pulled away, breath soft and warm on Steve’s lips, and murmured, “I told you I would see you through through this and I will honor my word. When you come back for me, I will be here waiting.”

The world went soft around the edges and Steve was suddenly overcome with a sense of peace that he had long since forgotten. It rushed through his body like a blessed memory, sticky and sweet like summer rain and honey. He kissed James again, an honored promise.

“I won’t be long.”

* * *


End file.
